The British Foreign Office.
Historicus in the Churchman’s Magazine (May) makes the following timely comment:—
“It is to be hoped after the war that there will be a clean-out in our Foreign Office. Every Roman Catholic should be told to seek other employment because, as a servant of the Papacy, he is our potential enemy. Whatever may be said as to the good character of the individual, he should not be tolerated. Sooner or later he will be, consciously or unconsciously, doing the work of our eternal enemy. The Vatican will continue to be at war with Britain so long as Britain is Protestant. Therefore our Government should keep all members of the Roman Church under control. Columns could be written showing how we, as a nation, have suffered at the hands of our Foreign Office. So many fatal moves have been made on the advice of the Foreign Office that one cannot help being suspicious that the Papists there have been responsible for them. Many of these moves have been in the interests of the Vatican, which has never studied our interests.”
The Popes Peace Plea.
The present Pope is an astute diplomatist and one does not need great penetrative insight to see that he is manoeuvring for a place at the Peace Councils of the assembled and victorious nations when the present carnage ceases. The curious thing is that the press of Protest countries seem to vie with each other in giving space to the papal utterances in their columns. The comment of a Canadian religious monthly, Evangelical Christian (Toronto), on the Pope’s message at the end of last year may be applied with equal truth to the recent papal utterance:—”Why space should be given each year by the press of the World to print what the Pope says will always remain a standing mystery to us. Better things are said every day by lots of Protestant clergymen in England and elsewhere, more constructive suggestions are made for the amelioration of the social ills of the world by the heads of other churches, but they are ignored by the press or relegated to a back page and a stick of type. No one denies the truth of what the Pope has said, only others have said the same things and said them better, so they can no longer be considered as “news,” but still the press, which seems bound to the chariot wheels of Romanism, goes on printing them. There are some significant truths that the Pope omits when he sends forth his messages to the world.”
Significant Omissions in the Papal Messages.
“One of the most significant of these is freedom of religion, the right of every man to determine how he shall worship God. And that is a fundamental implicate of freedom. Without that, all the Pope—or anyone else for that matter—may say is just ‘sound and fury signifying nothing.’ In every Protestant country in the world such freedom prevails. In every Roman Catholic country such freedom is denied. Let the United States and the British Empire look facts squarely in the face. Romanism is opposed to all that they stand for, and unless cognizance of this fact is taken we may find ourselves with a more bitter struggle on our hands when this war is over, and as unprepared spiritually for it as we were materially for the present conflict. For one with any knowledge of history it is laughable to read the following gem from the Vatican on December 24th: ‘There is on place for the persecution of religion and the Church.’ That is what the Pope thinks would obtain in the new order. And this from an organisation that has never yet denounced the slaughter of the Albigenes or the Huguenots, or the infamous Inquisition.”—Evangelical Christian.
What Passes for Christianity To-day.
We have already called attention to the Rev. L. B. Ashby’s religious column in the Daily Telegraph. Here as a specimen of what passes for Christianity:—Secondly whereas formerly Christ was preached primarily as the divine Victim, by Whose vicarious self-offering men have been offered escape from eternal damnation, He now stands beside us, our divine fellowman, bidding us share His spirit and the quality and grace of His human life. He is the true self of every man, calling us all, in fellowship with Him, to accept self-sacrifice as the price of righteousness on earth, no longer seeking to shelter behind His atoning death but rather making His character and ideals our own, in the belief it is his spirit alone that can transform individuals and save society.” For sheer heretical teaching on the Son of God this would be hard to beat. Man is exalted and He is brought down to that poor level. There is no need of atonement here. Mr. Ashby has got rid of the cross by a stroke of his pen. Christianity has certainly fallen on evil days when such teaching is given in one of our leading dailies.